The construction site is the city block bounded by Pyatnitskaya and Valovaya streets, 2nd and 3rd Monetchikovskaya lanes, excluding the building at the corner of Pyatnitskaya and Sadovy and the Lighthouse business center. Now it is the property of the First Model Printing House, the heiress of the famous I. D. Sytin. This corner of Zamoskvorechye is in itself one of the most "prayerful" places in the capital: suffice it to say that the playwright Alexander Ostrovsky lived here long before the construction of the printing house; the buildings themselves witnessed many historical events, including bloody ones - here the Moscow strike of 1905 began, during which the main building was almost completely burned down. Its cultural significance is no less significant: almost a quarter of Russian publications were printed here, literally all representatives of the Silver Age of Russian literature visited the printing house.
The complex, which was planned to be rebuilt into a residential area of premium quality, consists of three buildings from the turn of the XIX-XX centuries, one building from the 1930s and several buildings of no historical value, in the place of which new construction was planned. The main building - building No. 71 on Pyatnitskaya Street with a Gothic entrance and ornate attics, a recognized masterpiece of Moscow Art Nouveau built in 1903, was designed by architect Adolf Erichson and engineer Vladimir Shukhov; in Soviet times, a superstructure was erected over the fourth floor, which largely distorted the authors' intention. They also own the authorship of the red-brick building No. 3 in the courtyard, which appeared in 1912, where the warehouses and apartments of the Partnership employees were located; the building on Valovaya Street was built by architects Rybinsky and Voskresensky a little earlier, in 1888, and initially functioned as a tenement house. All historical buildings were subject to restoration with the restructuring of the internal space for living quarters and the addition of penthouse attics. The Soviet-built building was proposed to be renovated while preserving the frame, and a new building should be erected on the site of later buildings.
Four Moscow bureaus took part in the closed competition: Kleinewelt, ABV, DNA and Wall. The project won by the bureau Kleinewelt architekten. Then the construction was canceled.
Kleinewelt
The concept of this literary-oriented project is based on a combination within one quarter of different imaginative systems based on the works of five great Russian writers - Tolstoy, Gogol, Yesenin, Mayakovsky and Blok. Such rich cultural content, according to the authors, should bring the complex to a new level of premium, resulting from the interpenetration of material and emotional comfort and the opportunity for each of the potential clients to choose the atmosphere that is in tune with him personally. The authors delicately add laconic penthouse superstructures to the serious scientific restoration of historical facades, the plastic of new buildings is solved with wide "strokes", composing them from large cubes with recessed window niches or weighty stone slabs, symbolizing a new era and, accordingly, a new artistic expression. The center of the quarter's life should be the courtyard space dedicated to Diaghilev's Russian seasons.
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A B C
Along with the restoration of the external appearance of the historical buildings, the authors of the project focused on the optimization of the apartment layout. The complex rebus involving Shukhov's columns, Erichson's windows, vaulted ceilings and modern requirements for living quarters was solved only by refusing to strictly comply with the terms of reference. The silhouette of the main building was returned to the original concept, moving the attic inward, the facade was kept in beige and gray tones with delicate stucco decoration. The extended volume of the building along 2-nd Monetchikovsky lane is divided into four parts, which are visually perceived as separate buildings; a new building in the corner of the block, quite modern in its architecture, decorated with colored ornaments in the spirit of Art Nouveau, referring to the era of the construction of historical buildings.
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DNA ag
The figurative series of the project is based on the theme of typography in its most practical sense - as a place in which books are printed. Relief as the basis of printing, the structure of the typesetting cash register, fragments of engravings and ornaments - all these signs of typography have turned into architectural and decorative techniques that unite the historical and newly built buildings of the complex into one whole. The structure according to the 2nd Monetchikovsky is the embodiment of the connection of times: the preserved frame seems to break through the new facade “put on” it. To prevent the building from being perceived as monotonous, three options for the location of the caissons were applied along the facade, and at the level of the attic the silhouette is divided into three parts by recesses of the terraces. The building, which stands inside the courtyard, the authors propose to build on with an attic of an emphatically modern shape with a broken line of the facade, thematically connecting the quarter with neighboring buildings, and elements of castle garden architecture are introduced into the landscaping of the courtyard.
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Wall
The authors propose to use in the project such a new technology for Moscow as a semi-private space. Leaving part of the courtyard for the full use of the residents of the complex, they give the remaining space for the so-called "black path", highlighted with the help of contrasting paving. Starting from the Garden Ring, it leads to the newly built sculpture building, which the architects position as the cornerstone of the quarter, defining its identity. It is a trapezoidal glass volume with a sloping roof, lined with black pylons on narrow verticals. The facades of the renovated Soviet building on 2-nd Monetchikovsky lane were solved in the same style. As for the historical buildings, here the architects plan to limit themselves to the maximum preservation and restoration of the aesthetics of the existing buildings.
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